


Through the Wilderness

by Meduseld



Category: Turn (TV 2014)
Genre: (no really), Angry Sex, Character Study, Implications of Abe/Ben/Caleb in some combination, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 03:05:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11245014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Meduseld/pseuds/Meduseld
Summary: Robert Townsend doesn’t want Abraham Woodhull in his life.





	Through the Wilderness

**Author's Note:**

> The alternate ending to 2x05, in response to [this prompt](http://turn-kink.livejournal.com/799.html?thread=44831#t44831), with way more character study and spying than required.

His father has always said that Robert is the perfect embodiment of their faith.

Austerity and self-restraint, no _self-denial_ , he says, and, as the rift between the “political” and “religious” Friends grows, he adds _blandly indifferent_.

Robert takes the compliment and refuses to react to the derision. His father has always been loud and impetuous, traits that have only worsened with the passing of his mother.

It is true, after all.

Robert has a steely spine and a merchant’s mind and a hard mouth. He has never felt himself weaken towards the baubles of wealth or status. Unlike some.

He has sided with those Friends that say that God shall lead them through this so long as they are strong, devout, and peaceful, like Jesus in the wilderness.

He wants to run his inn in peace and live as far away from the world as he can manage. It is a cruel, treacherous place and the people in it are trying. And vexing.

And none more so than Abraham Woodhull.

He hadn’t been particularly noticeable that first morning, but the keen eye Robert had honed over years of haggling with whalers and traders, and now His Majesty’s men, had taken notice all the same. Maybe the way he’d asked for the eggs with poorly studied nonchalance. Or the way his eyes darted about while his mouth smiled wide and inviting.

Or the way he’d immediately set about ferreting information from the other guests.

A rogue and a cheat, running from a debtor’s charge, were the first thoughts that flickered through his mind. But something hard and heavy in his gut had whispered that Abraham Woodhull would prove to be something far more dangerous.

The unease mixed in with the shape his hands, strong yet graceful. _Beautiful,_ Robert had thought.

They stuck in his mind during the day, threaded through with worry and black suspicion of their owner. That night, with the egg and the candle and the way he’d lied, _poorly_ , Robert lay awake and wondered about his lodger. And turned his mind over the way the light had played on Woodhull’s hair and lips.

That morning, when his eyes flicked open, after fitful sleep with such _dreams_ and with the thumping of military boots over his head as his tenants readied for the day, he knew instantly what Woodhull was.

And wished, for the first time in his life that he might be of a different Christian faith. One that included the formal rite of confession.

Though which, of all the thoughts he’d had that night, he would want to confess he wasn’t sure.

~

He thinks the fried egg will be the end of it. The message is pointed enough.

Instead Woodhull asks his name. And seems… _intrigued_.

Robert can’t stop thinking on it, and Woodhull seems to be everywhere, even when he is not in the city. Instead he has taken to skulking in Robert’s dreams, shadowed and almost menacing, leaving him unnerved and unsatisfied.

It is the first time Robert has considered…has considered.

He has had no shortage of offers, from drunken and not so drunken patrons of his inn, lonely widows and those with living husbands, and the various prostitutes, male and female, that call from doorways as Robert runs errands in the city.

But it is the first time he has really felt _want_.

And it is for a boy, playing a man, playing a spy.

He is full of feeling, but he cannot determine its name. Anger, perhaps. It shifts inside of him, a dark unknown quantity that has him sending Woodhull away and calling him back.

There has to be a resolution for it, and it is likely to be Woodhull’s death.

The thought brings no comfort. It trickles into his already troubled dreams, already too real by half, and Robert wakes with the taste of blood in his mouth and phantom hands on his skin.

He spends an hour longer than he should buying beer from the brewer, staring at a lean boy with brown eyes and firm hands, some new apprentice whose name he cannot recall. The boy smiles invitingly, and it burns away any resemblance. Robert all but runs home.

His father is waiting with a smile and the words jump fully formed from his mouth “Have I warned you about Mr. Woodhull?”

He and his father have had many disagreements.

The root of which is this, his father never does what Robert wishes and seems to take glee in having the exact opposite view. Robert never should have told him. He knew what his father would do.

And Robert rushed to tell him.

The conflicted hopes mix in him so totally he accepts his father’s help in tending the inn.

When Woodhull returns, Robert’s father smiling at him, he sees that was his biggest error.

~

That Woodhull wants him as a spy is unsurprising. That his father would support it is also unsurprising.

That his heart would, for a moment, desire it, _is_ a surprise.

Woodhull leaves them and his father fixes him with a heavy gaze and he cannot breathe. He goes out into the hallway before the thought truly crosses his mind and leans his head onto the cool wall.

He wants to pray for forgiveness but is not sure how he has sinned.

When he hears Woodhull’s voice, he laughs. Because why shouldn’t his dreams consume him when he’s awake? And then he understands that it really is Woodhull’s voice, coming from his room and Robert is instantly, apocalyptically, angry.

~

He slips into the room and closes the door quietly behind him; it won’t do to attract any undue attention. He breathes against the door for a moment and Woodhull hasn’t even noticed him, absorbed in whatever scenario he seems to be reciting. He’s doing _voices_.

“How?” He almost whispers and Woodhull jumps on the bed, turning.

“How can you possibly- how can you be such a fool? To talk aloud? Here? You- you-”

Woodhull has the nerve to look _relieved._ “Robert!” “You’re going to be dead within a fortnight, you idiot”

Woodhull’s mouth is hanging open and Robert cannot bear it any longer. Not if Woodhull is so careless with his life. Not if they’ll never meet again.

Not if this one night is the only chance he has.

His mouth crashes hard and angry on Woodhull’s, splitting his lower lip and Robert sucks at it greedily. It tastes better than it ever has in his dreams.

A hand snakes into his hair and it sparks his anger, and grabs it and pins it to his waist. His other hand is firmly fisted in Woodhull’s collar.

And he’s _eager_. Moaning into Robert’s mouth, writhing against him, as if he’s been the one to suffer. To _long._

Both his hands come up to frame Woodhull’s face and something is stilling inside him. He doesn’t know when their lips part but he’s suddenly aware of a soft whisper by his jaw: “‘t’s alright Robert, it’s alright”.

He shakes his head, feeling unmoored. Whatever sense he has left reminds him of a crucial fact.

When last they spoke Woodhull had made an offer.

“This. This does not mean- I do not-”

Woodhull kisses him softly. “I know. I can see that. This doesn’t have to touch anything else. It can remain between us as…friendship”

Robert almost laughs.

“Do you do this with your friends?” He says without thinking and regrets it. Perhaps he has.

The thought of leaving flickers in his mind, but Woodhull smiles, indulgent and kisses him again and his anger flares, or perhaps it is another feeling entirely.

He claws at Woodhull’s clothes, then his own, tangling himself. “Easy” Woodhull whispers and somehow manages to remove everything. Robert grabs his shoulders, hard enough to bruise, and pulls an earlobe with his teeth.

Then he shoves, dropping him bare chested on the bed.

He moves away, savoring the open confusion on Woodhull’s face as he turns and jams the chair against the door. The Welsh fusilier two doors down is a light sleeper and he wants no interruptions.

He throws himself on Woodhull and consumes whatever reason he has left. He gives in to some inner well of greed, running bruising fingers and sharp teeth over all the skin he can reach. He gets it all back in kind.

His mouth tastes of blood and sweat and Woodhull and he has never felt so suited to his own body. He can almost hear it sing.  

God will forgive him for this.

“Robert? How do you wa-?” Woodhull tries to ask, gently, and Robert does not have the words, instead he wraps his legs around his waist, pulling until there is no space left between them, rolling up to meet him. It makes the message clear enough.

Woodhull fumbles with the leather bag near the bed, and it becomes clear enough he _has_ done this before. Some part of Robert feels both elated and furious, at the evidence that he has picked the right sinner for this and he bites into the pale shoulder of his partner to smother a laugh.

And a moan.

He understands now, how easy, how pleasing it can be to sin. With every press of Woodhull’s fingers, of feeling him _inside_ , he can see why so many yield to temptation.

It is as if those fingers are remaking him into something else entirely. He is a flame of want, rolling and arching when Woodhull finally, finally, pushes inside.

“Alright?’ Is whispered softly by his ear, accompanied by a gentle thrust.

"You great blithering fool” he says, the words heavy and slurred, and Woodhull has a splinter of a moment to look affronted before Robert leverages his legs and hands on Woodhull’s waist to make him go harder, faster, to push Robert closer and closer to everything he can feel building inside.  

He has been a good, pious man and tonight he wants to be something else.

To be a being of heat and sensation and nothing else. Empty except for the burn of another inside of him.

And for that he needs more. Faster. Harder.

“Rob-Robert” Woodhull stutters above him and it strikes him that he must have been saying it out loud. And that for all of his experience, no one has ever done this with him before, taking him in so desperately.

It’s still not enough, the punishing pace he wants is _just_ out of reach and he arches from the bed to force them closer, to set the rhythm with his hips.

The hands on them clench and he’ll be bruised, tomorrow.

Woodhull stutters above him, face undone, swept away by the current of Robert’s want.

The word ecstasy tangles in his mind and his teeth, alive with new meaning. He could die like this, in this world of skin and sound, so _full_ , though he’d be hell bound.

A mouth drags hot and wet along his neck and he turns and catches it. He can taste something bitter, something sweet and that’s all he can think when everything ends. There is nothing but light as he peaks.

~

For a moment he thinks he really has died, until he feels Woodhull peak and collapse on him. He halfheartedly shoves him off.

“Wh-what was that?”

And Robert can’t help but laugh. “Of both of us you were the one with such experience, you dunce”.

“All that and you still call me names? What must I do to earn your regard?”

Robert smiles. It doesn’t do much to stem the tide of reality, bleeding in from wherever he managed to banish it.

“Not getting yourself hanged would be a start, Woodhull”.

The grin playing on his partner’s face fades. “Abraham. Please.”

He looks away and some part of Robert wants to pull him back. Another is telling him to leave. Pretend it was another fevered dream.

“No. Hanging isn’t the problem, in truth, it’s- I apologize. We agreed”. Woo- no, _Abraham_ finally mumbles into the silence.

The perfect opportunity to leave. To try and salvage something of the night, to gather himself. To pray, perhaps. And yet, Robert can only think he knows what this man tastes like. What he _feels_ like.  

“Abraham…While I am not accepting your offer, you’ve proven to be a dunce. And I should be charitable towards you”.

Abraham smiles, soft. Taken in the spirit it was intended then, a rarity for Robert, who manages a small smile of his own. Humor is not his strong suit.

Neither of them are smiling when Abraham finishes his explanations.

“Right. Nothing for it now, but to make the best of tonight” Abraham finally sighs and mouths at Robert’s shoulder. His eyes begin to roll back and a name climbs to his lips.

“Willem De Decker”.

“What?”

De Decker is a cheating lout of an inn keeper that Robert knows for a fact filches from British ships with his oafish sons. It is only the meagerest portion of his misdeeds but it will suffice for the Crown.

“The wares in his cellar are marked as the king’s property. It would be quite the feather in the cap of your major. Tell him that the theft proves his, in truth, nonexistent, political leanings and that you have identified several patrons of his establishment you wish to observe more closely”.

Abraham’s mouth hangs open then splits into a wide grin.

“I could kiss you” he says, and does.

~

“Shall we see you again, Mr. Woodhull?” enquires Mr. Samuel Townsend that morning, tending to the breakfast of three grenadiers while Abe struggles with both pulling on his coat and eating some toast.

Both their eyes flick to Robert, standing absolutely inscrutable on the stairs.

“You know, Mr. Townsend, I believe you just might”.

**Author's Note:**

> Quakers aren’t actually called Quakers (though some use/accept it in the present). Their official name is the Religious Society of Friends, which is what they call each other. I tried to do right by them and might have failed. But I do feel Robert’s idea of the sin/repentance is way more about the premarital sex thing than the gay thing.


End file.
